Cigarette Packaging in Ireland: The Plain Future.

Transcription

1 Cigarette Packaging in Ireland: The Plain Future. Wesley Connolly Tong and Maurice Murphy

2 New Laws in Ireland Ireland has become the first country in Europe and the second in the world to pass plain packaging laws for tobacco products. Cigarette companies will be banned from producing branded tobacco products for the Irish market from May 2016 and banned from selling branded tobacco products in Ireland from May /08/2015 2

3 Packaging is Powerful! Packaging is the last and most critical link in the chain of promotional communications. Since the tobacco industry has been stripped of most of its marketing mix, the cigarette package has become an increasingly important advertising tool. 19/08/2015 3

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6 Packaging is Powerful! Okell (2007) contends that cigarette pack design is used to attract attention, communicate brand identity, offer symbolic meaning to the user and function as an extension of their personality and demonstrates how young adult smokers use packaging design to construct their smoker identities. 19/08/2015 6

7 Is Plain Packaging Powerful? Plain packaging (which had branded elements, such as colour, fonts, and imagery removed) is less attractive and engaging, particularly to young people (Freeman et al., 2008). 19/08/2015 7

8 Plain Packaging Samples 19/08/2015 8

9 Plain Packaging Samples 19/08/2015 9

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11 Research Objectives Does plain packaging facilitate an improved attention to health warnings? Does plain packaging increase consumer perceptions of risk? Does plain packaging reduce consumer appeal and attraction? Does plain packaging reduce consumer demand and smoking behaviour? 19/08/

12 Improved attention to Health Warnings Qualitative research with New Zealand youth found that pictorial warnings on plain cigarette packs increased the attention paid to graphic warning labels and increased the overall perceptions of harm caused by cigarette smoking, and reduced the social appeal of cigarette smoking (McCool et al., 2012). 19/08/

13 Improved attention to Health Warnings A study conducted with youth in Belgium found that health warnings catch the eye much more strongly when presented on plain, rather than branded packages (Van Hal et al., 2012). Canadian university students exhibited greater recall for health warnings on plain versus branded packaging (Al-Hamdani, 2013). 19/08/

14 Increased Consumer Perceptions of Risk Tobacco packaging has played a central role in promoting the false belief that some cigarette brands are less harmful than others (Hammond, 2014). Pack colour was significantly associated with ratings of reduced risk and tar (Hammond, 2014). Plain packages were associated with fewer false beliefs about the relative risk of different brands (Gallopel-Morvan et al., 2011). 19/08/

15 Increased Consumer Perceptions of Risk Packs with darker colours were seen to contain cigarettes which were more harmful to health and harder to quit. Conversely, packs with lighter colours were seen to be less 'harmful to health' and easier to quit (Gallopel-Morvan et al., 2011). The findings highlight the importance of base colour for plain packaging. 19/08/

16 Reduced Consumer Appeal and Attraction In general, plain packaging reduces the appeal of cigarettes among adolescents and adults in terms of the attractiveness or appeal of the cigarette (Scheffels and Sæbø, 2013). It also reduces the taste of the cigarette compared to fully branded cigarettes (Hammond et al., 2013). 19/08/

17 Reduced Consumer Appeal and Attraction Approximately one third of youth in a study (Hammond et al., 2013) believed plain packaging would make non-smokers less likely to start and approximately one quarter believed plain packaging would make young smokers smoke less. 19/08/

18 Reduced Consumer Demand and Smoking Behaviour Germain et al. (2010) found that youth perceived images of progressively plainer packs to be less appealing and also to negatively effect product taste. Pack options with fewer branding elements were associated with less demand and were more likely to elicit cessation behaviour (Hoek et al., 2010). 19/08/

19 Plain Cigarette Pack Colour and Attitude to the Cigarette Pack Colour is routinely used in package design to shape consumer perceptions of risk (Pollay, 2001; Wakefield et al., 2002). These studies are consistent in demonstrating that darker, non-white colours are perceived as significantly less appealing and more effective. 19/08/

20 Plain Packaging Regulations in Australia December 2012 Smokers using plain packs perceived their cigarettes to be lower in quality, tended to perceive their cigarettes as less satisfying than a year ago, were more likely to have thought about quitting at least once a day in the past week, and rated quitting as a higher priority in their lives (Wakefield et al., 2013). 19/08/

21 Plain Packaging Regulations in Australia Calls to the Quitline increased 78% after plain packaging was implemented, adjusting for other factors. Quitline calls peaked 4 weeks after the implementation deadline for plain packaging, but the increase was prolonged at 6 months post-implementation (Hammond, 2014). 19/08/

22 Thank you